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The ghost of a smile touched his lips. “I can imagine.”

The silence that followed felt different. Less strained. We'd acknowledged the elephant without forcing a full confrontation, which was about as close to healthy communication as we ever got.

I shifted gears, easing onto the highway toward Jersey. The road stretched ahead, leading us toward whatever waited in Hoboken.

Back to the hunt. Back to what we knew best. And maybe, if we were lucky, back to each other.

6

ASHES IN THEIR EYES

SEAN

Istraightened my tie in the rearview mirror, grimacing at my reflection. The cheap polyester felt like a noose around my neck, a reminder of why I don’t put these things on often. Next to me, Cade adjusted his own tie with practiced ease, his movements precise and methodical. Too precise. Too methodical. Like everything else since his return.

“Ready to be federal agents again?” I asked, pulling our fake CITD badges from the glove compartment and handing one to him.

Cade accepted the badge, studying it with a slight frown. “These still work?”

“Like a charm,” I confirmed, tucking mine into my jacket pocket. “Local cops see a fancy badge and hear 'federal' and they practically trip over themselves to help.”

We climbed out of the Impala, the morning chill raising goosebumps on my skin despite the suit jacket. The crime scene was cordoned off with yellow tape, uniformed officers milling about with coffee cups clutched in their hands. All standardprocedure, except for the palpable unease in the air. Whatever happened here had spooked even the veterans.

“Something's off,” I muttered as we approached the police line.

Cade nodded slightly, eyes scanning the scene with clinical detachment. “They're nervous. Not just regular homicide nervous.”

We reached the tape where a uniformed officer stood guard, his complexion the color of day-old oatmeal. I flashed my badge smoothly, the practiced motion automatic after years of hunting.

“Agents Tennant and Smith, CITD,” I said, my tone authoritative enough to discourage questions. “We need to see the body.”

The officer barely glanced at our credentials before lifting the tape. “Thank Christ. Maybe you feds can make sense of this one.”

The alleyway was narrow, dumpsters lining one side and a brick wall the other. Crime scene techs photographed the area, their flashbulbs creating stark white flashes in the shadow of the buildings. At the center of their attention lay the body, slumped against the wall like a discarded mannequin.

“Son of a bitch,” I breathed.

The first thing that hit me wasn't the burnt-out eyes, but the expression frozen on the victim's face. Pure agony, mouth stretched wide in a silent scream, skin contorted into a mask of terror. This wasn't just death. This was torture.

I'd seen psychic vampire victims before—they looked peaceful, almost blissful in death, drained of life force but not tormented. This was something entirely different.

Cade moved forward with that same disturbing calm, snapping on latex gloves he'd pulled from his pocket. He knelt beside the body, examining the burns around the eye sockets without flinching. The skin was charred black, the flesh beneath shriveled and cooked.

“No sign of accelerants,” he muttered, voice low enough that only I could hear. “This wasn't fire. It was . . . different. External heat would have damaged the surrounding tissue more evenly.”

I crouched beside him, the old hunter instincts cataloging details. “What are we thinking? Demonic? Some kind of ocular-specific entity?”

Cade's expression remained studiously neutral as he carefully turned the victim's head, examining the burns from different angles. “The pattern is unusual. It originated inside the eye sockets and burned outward.”

“Like something reached into his brain and turned up the heat,” I suggested, recognition dawning. This wasn't random violence—it was targeted, surgical.

“Possibly,” Cade agreed, standing smoothly. His gaze met mine, and for a brief moment, I caught something lurking behind his professional mask. Not emotion, exactly, but recognition.

Before I could ask about it, a detective approached, notepad in hand and exhaustion etched into his face. “You two the feds?”

I straightened, smoothly shifting back into agent mode. “That's right. What can you tell us?”

The detective, a heavyset man with salt-and-pepper hair and eyes that had seen too much, shrugged wearily. “Victim's name is Martin Reeves, 42, investment banker. Found by a homeless guy around 4 AM. No witnesses to the actual attack.”